Father,
I often feel like I'm trespassing even if I'm allowed to be somewhere.
But today, I was actually a trespasser. I had come to visit a patient at the Myunseung Christian Hospital near my home, and I'd forgotten to bring my I.D. Nobody checked me at the gate, though, and I was able to head straight to the room I suspected the patient was at.
But she wasn't there when I showed up, and I suspected that she'd already left the country to continue her treatment as she had planned.
I should've called beforehand to check if she would be there.
After that, I didn't want to just go home. So I started wandering, and I found a Disney-esque tunnel covered in vines. There was a 'guesthouse members-only' sign hung at its entrance, but I walked right through that tunnel to the other side of the compound.
There was a lot of vacant land and some apartments some distance away. I guess that's where a lot of Korean expatriates live. The only Ethiopians I found there were mainly working on the garden or some other form of maintenance. I greeted the guard with a nod to avoid being asked questions, and after an uneventful little tour, I walked right back through the tunnel and out of the hospital.
Now, I could act confident and trick others into believing that I belong somewhere I don't—You know that hospital area isn't the only place I ever walked into uninvited. When I was in those places, be it a luxury apartment or an art event with a guest list I wasn't on, I had some sense of anxiety about being caught. I knew that I wasn't supposed to be where I was and that the place wasn't meant for me.
I'd been getting that feeling that more often lately—but this time, it's been happening in places I was allowed to be. I know the world hadn't changed very much in the past couple of years.
And no level of confidence or posing could help me feel like I belong.
It's like taking on Your radical viewpoint turned me into the kind of creature that has no real place in this world. Neither here in Ethiopia—where I’ve become able to communicate in the national language—nor in Saudi Arabia, the land I spent the first eighteen years of my life in.
The world rejected You, and now, I feel like I'm rejected by default too. I can be like a chameleon that blends in with students, intellectuals, or whatever. But I am never really any of those things. There are no colors I can wave as my own or places to which I could say I belong.
But thank You Father, that there will come an end to this too. Thank You for the refuge I have in Your Word and for calling me to be part of Your household, Your kingdom.
Love
-w
I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.
John 17:14 - 17 NKJV